Picking Up Pieces
by Ithitsallonitsown
Summary: Cloud, Tifa, and the whole gang had been through quite a lot over their travels, but they had never tried to bite off more than they could chew. At the end of the day, life was about picking up your pieces, and everyone had a few, and trying to move on. Cloud and Tifa, living with Marlene in Edge while Barrett looks for oil, pick up pieces together. CloTi drabbles, with the gang.


**Author's Note:**

Final Fantasy VII is one of those near-and-dears that everyone picks up as a kid; those couple of games that consumed your weekends as a child, that you can still play today and marvel at in wonder. At least, it was for me. This takes place, as the intro said, between the events of Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children, as the world begins to rebuild in the wake of Sephiroth, Jenova, and all the damage and strife they caused. There'll be some action, some suspense, and some drama, but this is more of a fluffy cuddly fic, rather than all action-ey like Finn Grows Up. It's a series of drabbles that I hope you'll enjoy. :)

**Settling Dust**

Raindrops pattered on the windowsills, drumming a gentle tap on the roof. Outside, various cars, bikes, and buggies sifted through the wet, spraying mist in their wakes. Outside was damp, chill, and windswept, but Edgers never minded. Better to be under the rainy skies than under the shade of the plates above. Even rain six out of seven days was better than the Midgar slums.

But that didn't mean that Edgers were damp, chill people. Life had been hard to them; the course of the world had crossed these people more than once, and more than once for ill. And yet here they stood. And who has time for dillydally when they've been through such things? No, certainly not them. Edge, build under Old Midgar's shadows, was, from its inception, a modest place of modest people, who knew how abruptly life can end, how suddenly possessions and even people can be stripped away, and chose to take a life filled with simple, enjoyable things shared with people who matter. Tifa Lockhart, owner and keeper of Seventh Heaven, a restored, rebuild reiteration of a timeless local staple, had lived with her fingers to the pulse of this town and everyone in it, and practically since he had arrived in Midgar from Nibelheim. The slums were like edge, simple and hard, but in other ways; a touch harder, just enough to make a bad place out of good people. Beyond her doors, there was struggle and danger, but inside her bar was firmly established neutral ground. Everyone was safe, and everyone was welcome, as long as everyone was civil. No exceptions. Anyone who wasn't civil wasn't welcome, and anyone who wasn't welcome, wasn't safe. Also, no exceptions.

Yet, it wasn't her iron will and slim tolerance alone that had carved out a slice of sanity amidst a fight for daily survival; Tifa was cherished by all who came to know her as a sliver of altruism and caring down in a world where nobody could be bothered to save someone else's skin, too busy trying to save your own. At Seventh Heaven, there was food and drink at a manageable expense, a dozen or so people a night who deal with the same shit you do, and one dynamite combination of a keen ear, pretty appearance, sharp wit, and kind, open heart. Even in a hard place like that, it was a soft spot in everyone's heart.

Then, of course, came the events leading up to Meteorfall. A date etched into the minds of everyone in Edge. Much was lost. Loved ones, businesses, homes, years of struggle and competition, just to make it out, but in the end, a chance to rebuild, reclaim, and ultimately recover. Seventh Heaven, the original, was no more, buried underneath the Sector 7 plate.

It didn't matter. There was still Tifa Lockhart. When she came back from a trip down into the ruins and put that same old sign up over her door, one of the first main street business/apartment combos of what would become the heart of Edge, and sat to wait behind the dark stained countertop, the night ended sending home familiar faces. Rico, Johnny, Kent, Alice, Lloyd, Mia, Henny… She was still in the same place, with the same people, lifting the same spirits, while doing the same thing.

Going on. Getting up to go at it another day. Surviving, and trying to be as happy as could be while doing it.

"Just trying to _Edge_ on by," he would say. Groan. Who taught that boy his sense of humor? What a disaster.

Cloud, of course, was completely instrumental to any and all of this. Edge owed everything to him, both in terms of the survival of its people, and in terms of the new opportunity they had. On his motorcycle Fenrir, the powerful machine he had bartered _someone_ to get, he made trips across the badlands and back to Edge, bringing messages back and forth, but also vital supplies such as medicine, crop seeds, and a whole range of vital equipment and devices that Edge would need to reach it's realization; a small, simple, but advanced community, close-knit, with an emphasis on a maximizing the individual quality of life, while minimizing the financial requirements and environmental impact. Satisfying, stable, sustainable, and completely self-sufficient. And it was all built on the back of a shy, slender young man who didn't know how to stay still.

And his puns were truly terrible. Which he knew, of course. All the more reason she should feel flattered that he chose to share them with her. Cloud was not an unfriendly man at all; that, while not immediately apparent, was so to anyone who spent a good length of time around him. He was very friendly, for certain, but also very cautious and reserved. He had always seemed very aloof, and it could take months if not sometimes years of distant, quiet friendliness for him to open up in any meaningful way. If he decided to at all. Cloud was very much about his distance. He needed distance from things, to analyze them, to decide how to proceed. Distance was how Cloud dealt with the world. Careful distance.

So when he became close to something, it invariably meant that, whatever it was, in meant a great deal to him. Things like this were irreplaceable in his life. There were no equivalents for these. Things like home; Nibelheim, the old Seventh Heaven in Midgar, the new Seventh Heaven in Edge. Things like friends as well; Barrett, Cid, Vincent, Yuffie, Red XIII. And comrades, fallen companions; Zack and Aerith, two names that he whispered at night with a pained, longing voice.

And there was family, in that apartment up above the bar. There was Tifa there first, with Cloud coming through to visit as he did. When Barrett declared that oil, coal, and gas would be the buildingblocks of Edge's future and set off looking for them, Marlene was added to the gang. When it became known that Cloud, for all his travels, didn't actually have a home base, another name went onto another door, and it was his house too. Three people, bound together out of circumstance, but bound together indeed. Marlene had her big sister and brother, while dad was off doing incredibly important work to make sure that they all could live happily together for a long time. What more could a little girl ask for?

As for Tifa and Cloud, well, the living arrangements had other implications, for certain.

That night. How could she forget it? The sweat, the passion, and then the quiet, intimate closeness; was it like all she had dreamed of as a girl? Well, she honestly thought little-girl Tifa couldn't fully conceive of what it meant, but Cloud had been good to her that night, for certain; treated her with all the tenderness and gentleness that made her little girl's heart swell with a wonderful ache, but also with a fiery intent that fed more womanly feelings.

Their proximity was… Exciting, for certain. Things were different from when Barrett had been around, so long ago. The older man had been diligent in his etiquette and privacy, and she wouldn't have been interested in any more intimate proximity even if he hadn't been.

It had become immediately apparent that living with Cloud in the house would be different, from the moment she came down the stairs to see him, nude save his uniform pants, early that first morning. He was performing one of his combat drills, and unarmed form that while simple and straightforward compared to the sort of thing she worked with, suited his form well; the direct, efficient movements rippled his lean but muscular body. Watching from the stairwell for several moments had formed a tingling pit of guilty pleasure in her stomach, sending it along in a series of flipflops and flutters.

When he looked over his shoulder, her hands flew like butterflies to her mouth, before she set about setting up a pot of coffee, trying to hid her face and eyes behind her long brown hair.

"_Oh yeah, this arrangement will be… Interesting,"_ she thought again, her decision solidified. Where they stood in their relationship was an article of contention now. Which was unsurprising, of course. Their last time together resembling anything along the lines of normal, casual interaction had been a break in normalcy for both of them, to say the least; a momentary retreat into sudden passion, born of a desperate need of what could have been final companionship and laden with history and nostalgic longing that, in the final hour, demanded resolution from both of them. And Cloud would deal with it how he always did; time, and space. Tifa herself had seen to it that, as long as it took, Cloud could do it.

Wounds would heal, she mused, sipping that same coffee at that same gentle, glowing hour of morning that she had made those few weeks ago. It had become something of a ritual for her, a sign of a return to normalcy. The dust would settle, and their lives would move on. "The dust will settle," Tifa said firmly then, nodding to herself as she toted the mug to her lips.

"Usually does," mused a low, husky voice that she had become quite familiar with over the long roads and desperate travels. A warm hand made of rough callouses along slender, nimble piano fingers closed over hers, strong arms wound around Tifa's slender shoulders to grasp the mug and pull it gently from her hands. Tifa jumped, making a startled squeak in the back of her throat as the pale-skinned, blond-haired messenger lifted the mug to his lips, those thin pink lines bent ever so slightly upwards in a casual smirk. The fighter frowned as deeply as her face flushed, tips of her ears burning, turning to scowl at Cloud as he took another sip. He set the mug on the counter and walked away for his daily morning drill.

"_And the dust will settle..."_ she told herself, as her stomach did fluttering flips yet again. She could only hope for her sake that it did.


End file.
